


the monster i created

by heathermylove



Category: Heathers (1988), Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: A LOT of violence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bombs, F/F, Gen, Violence, featuring gay ghosts, this is really sad why did i even write this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-11 06:16:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5616655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heathermylove/pseuds/heathermylove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which the wrong hand fires the bullet, and the fourth and final westerburg suicide occurs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. cheek to cheek in hell

**Author's Note:**

> i didnt do this fic justice. but i tried, god, did i try. thanks for reading!

“Step away from the bomb.”  
Veronica’s sweaty palms gripped the handle of a croquet mallet. Her knees trembled.  
_Stomp-stomp-CLAP._  
J.D. feigned a moment’s surprise, but he recollected himself quickly.  
“And here I thought you’d lost your taste in faking suicides.”  
_Stomp-stomp-clap._  
“Step away from the goddamned bomb!” Her voice shook.  
“This little thing? I’d hardly call it a bomb, darling. This is just to set off the pack of thermals in the gym.” J.D. purred calmly as he revealed a pistol in his right hand.  
“J.D., please, just get away from the bomb.”  
_Stomp-stomp-CLAP!_  
“Veronica, don’t you get it? People are going to look at the ashes of Westerberg and think—”  
Before he could spit out another word, Veronica smashed his hand with the mallet and snatched the gun off the floor. Sweat and tears dripped off her cheeks. With an unsteady hand, she pressed the gun to J.D.’s temple.  
_Stomp-stomp-CLAP._  
“It’s over, J.D. Turn it off.”  
He laughed and flicked his gaze coolly over to the bomb, which had just started a 3-minute countdown. Veronica could feel her insides twisting.  
J.D. grinned madly.  
“You didn’t say Simon Says.”  
Veronica gave him a confounded stare. Her guard was down.  
He lunged with pure malice in his eyes.  
They struggled and fought, and then a gun fired and she wasn’t sure whether it was her or J.D. holding the trigger.  
Veronica screamed. Her adrenaline spiked and on an instinct, she swung her weapon.  
_Stomp-stomp-CLAP._  
The mallet smacked J.D.’s skull and he crumpled to the floor.  
Red began to spread across the bottom of her blazer, soaking her skirt as well.

She couldn’t tell if he was dead or unconscious. There was no time to decide.  
Veronica lugged the bomb up the stairs and ran, ran, ran, past the pep rally, through the hallways, outside, to the football field. The thing was cumbersome and heavy as five textbooks and it made the most obnoxious beeping noise. Her abdomen burned.  
She crumpled on the 30-yard line and weakly retrieved her diary from where she kept it, inside a pocket she’d sewn in her blazer.  
Tears stained the paper as she wrote the date.  
_Dear diary,_  
_The irony here is that I never got the chance to write a suicide note._  
The pen dropped from her blood-soaked hand.  
The timer was at 10 seconds.  
Now or never.  
With the last ounce of energy she had, she scrawled her initials on the paper.  
_-V.S._


	2. she was just seventeen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WESTERBURG SUICIDES: SENIOR FOUND DEAD ON FOOTBALL FIELD.  
> The suicide epidemic sweeping Sherwood has claimed its fourth victim: senior student Veronica Sawyer, age 17. Sawyer, described as a "brilliant young woman with strong potential" by guidance counselor Pauline Fleming, was found dead on the football field, clutching a hastily written suicide note from her diary and what appears to be a homemade bomb. The rest of the diary was destroyed in the explosion. A memorial service is to be held next week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of gore and dead body descriptions ahead. Reader be warned.

The explosion shook the school like an earthquake. The pyramid of cheerleaders collapsed as the gym floor trembled beneath them, and in a matter of seconds the pep rally fell into complete pandemonium. Students poured from the bleachers to investigate whatever it was that had interrupted the assembly.  
Heather McNamara picked herself up off the floor and tried to find Heather. Her knees wobbled as she rose to her feet and she winced - she had been at the very top of the pyramid before the whole thing self-destructed.  
She caught snippets of conversations as she pushed her way through the throngs of students:  
"What the friggin' hell was that?" asked a scrawny boy with coke-bottle glasses.  
"Sounded like it came from the football field," a blow-dried preppy in a sweater vest yelled.  
"What if it was a meteor? I bet it was a meteor!" exclaimed a pimply freshman in an oversized NASA T-shirt.  
"Are we gonna get a half-day now?" muttered a girl who reeked of weed - Heather recognized her from Ram's party - as she pushed up her tinted glasses.  
Heather's heart pounded as she got closer to the door, when she finally caught sight of a familiar red scrunchie, a crown sitting on the wrong head.  
"Heather!" she called out, hoping to grab her attention. Heather Duke whirled around to face McNamara. She seemed unusually serene, unfazed by whatever had disrupted the rally. It only made Heather McNamara more nervous about what was going on.  
She had to admit that she didn't completely trust Heather Duke, but if the rumors that Veronica had killed herself were true (they couldn't be true, Veronica wasn't weak like she was) then Heather was the only person she _could_ trust.  
"Heather, is it true that Veronica killed herself? I heard-"  
"Shut up, Heather," she snapped, "God, you're still such a pillowcase! I saw her talking to Mrs. Phlegm before the rally."  
Heather exhaled; the tension and anxiety building up inside her head took their leave.  
Still, as people yelled and shoved to get to the front of the crowd, Heather still felt something wasn't right. She bristled as a football player leaned onto her, having been pushed by another jock. He didn't seem to mind though; his hands had conveniently landed on her chest.  
She shrieked, and Duke seemed to notice her discomfort. She grabbed the other Heather by the wrist. Standing together, the Westerburg student body parted before them, allowing the girls to float to the head of the mob, out of the gymnasium, towards the football field.  
"Are you okay? That asshole had no right to do that you." Duke finally said, and for the first time since Heather's death, she actually sounded genuine.  
Heather gave no reply; she was too concerned by the clouds of smoke obscuring her field of vision. Her gut wrenched as she took numbing steps towards the field. The scent of burning grass made both girls wrinkle their noses, and Heather stifled a cough.  
As they walked onto the field, Heather couldn't shake that feeling of _wrongness_ mounting in her gut, the feeling that whatever was shrouded in smoke and flame on the football field could only be a harbinger of bad news.  
And then she stepped on something.  
It _squished_ under her foot, and she winced, stepping back. "Shit, my shoes!" Her foot suddenly felt wet inside her white cheerleading Keds. "Oh, my God."  
Heather looked down, and the image that met her eyes burned itself into her brain, promising to haunt her nightmares forever.  
Her bright white shoes had been stained with blood, and she'd crushed a severed hand under her step.  
"Oh, my God." Heather's eyes welled with tears as she realized that the entire football field was sprinkled with blood, dripping from blades of grass like dewdrops.  
Bits of muscle, skin, bone, and blue fabric were scattered everywhere. She knelt down to grab a piece of the fabric, and Heather swore her heart stopped beating for a second as she realized where that blue fabric was from.  
It was a scrap of a blazer she'd begged Veronica to buy when they ditched school together after she saved Heather's life.  
"Oh, no, oh no, Veronica..." Veronica was strong, Veronica was kind, Veronica didn't hate herself. Veronica couldn't have done this to herself.  
But there was her body - what was left of her body - and two fingers, clutching a crumpled piece of paper stained with blood.  
It was barely legible but Heather would recognize that handwriting from miles away, and it was hastily scribbled out, SUICIDE.  
Gravity pulled Heather McNamara to her knees as she began to sob. 

By now, the rest of the student body had caught up, and Heather Duke was already busy at work telling everybody how good little Veronica Sawyer had joined the popular kids in the hereafter. Teachers were rushing around, sirens wailed in the distance, and the world was spinning faster and faster around Heather McNamara as she tried to make sense of the blurry scene in front of her. 

The police burst through, and Heather could feel arms pulling her away. Her legs were soaked in blood and tears as she tried to stand her ground - but they were telling her,  
"Ma'am, this is a crime scene, we need to evacuate you," but she didn't want to leave, _Jesus Christ, Veronica,_ and she finally succumbed, letting the officers pull her back into the crowd, a mess of emotions and trauma as they cleaned her up. 

"No," Heather sniffed as they began to stow body parts into sterile bags. "NO! STOP!" she wailed, but they did not listen. 

"VERONICA!"


	3. now that you're dead, what are you going to do with your life?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hell looks a lot like Westerberg High and the Devil wears red lipstick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just fuck me up, honestly.
> 
> Death and some mentions of gore ahead.

For a second, Veronica felt everything ( _excruciating, agonizing torture, Jesus Christ_ ) and then she felt nothing ( _this was death, she was sure of it_ ).  
And it was quiet, as if a bomb hadn't just gone off in the middle of the football field.   
She unclenched her eyes, still curled into the fetal position she'd died in. She wondered how she was still in one piece, considering there were bits of Veronica scattered all over the grass.   
"Brav **o**." said a familiar voice, accompanied by slow, sarcastic clapping. Heather Chandler knelt on the grass and met Veronica's eyes. "I'm impressed."  
"You're dead," Veronica coughed, uncurling her arms from around her knees.  
"Surprise! So are you!" Heather shot back. "Welcome to the 'afterlife' or whatever you want to call this situation."   
Veronica stared at her, bewildered. She tried to stand up, but a burning pain in her abdomen made her cry out in pain.   
"Ooh, that is one nasty bullet hole." Heather winced, pointing at Veronica's blood-soaked blazer. "Let me help."   
She extended a hand to Veronica, who took it with trembling fingers.   
Veronica screamed again as Heather helped her to her feet, and she pressed a hand to her side. "Christ, I almost forgot that bastard shot me."   
Heather couldn't help but laugh at the irony of the situation. "So I'm guessing the break-up went well."  
"Yeah, I gave him a concussion as a going-away present." Veronica laughed, amused by her own joke.   
Heather started to laugh too, her blue-tinged lips pursed into a genuine smile, but suddenly a coughing fit overcame her.  
Veronica's heart dropped with guilt as Heather doubled over wheezing. "Heather, are you okay? I -"  
"I'm - ahem - I'm fine," she rasped. "I wasn't lying when I said I'd be coughing this shit up for eternity." Heather cleared her throat one more time for good measure.   
In the distance, sirens began to sound. Kids were pouring out of the school and towards the football field, and Heather and Heather were at the front of the crowd.   
"No, they can't see you," Heather answered, although nobody had asked. "You were the only one who could see me and Ram and Kurt - oh, by the way, they've already called dibs on haunting Bo Diddly, by the way, not like you'd want anything to do with him anymore."   
Veronica's eyes began to well with tears ( _so the dead could cry, after all._ ) as Heather McNamara stepped on her hand ( _it was still so fucked up to think that she was spread all over the football field like confetti_ ).  
Veronica moved towards her ( _the ground beneath her feet felt like nothing_ ) as poor Heather took in the scene - this belonged in a war zone, not at a high school in Sherwood, Ohio.   
"Heather, I'm right here, it's okay, i-i-it's okay, I'm r-right here, I-" she choked, trying to wrap her arms around the cheerleader. Her hands tingled as they passed straight through her shoulders.   
Heather dropped to her knees and began to sob uncontrollably.   
"I told you, you pillowcase. She can't see you. And she can't feel you or hear you either. You're _dead._ " Heather Chandler truly felt bad for Veronica - she'd tried to rip the pen out of Veronica's hand as she forged the suicide note, she'd tried to hug a weeping Heather Mac at the funeral, but nothing happened.   
"Veronica, let her go." Heather pulled Veronica off of Heather Mac, who was being dragged away by a cop in the opposite direction.   
She watched as an EMT threw a shock blanket around the cheerleader's shoulders, then turned away.   
"Let's say one last bye-bye to Red Dawn and then we'll motor."


End file.
